Page 8 of The Beach Hut on Plum Island
“I’m afraid so, love.” Julie’s voice resonated with anger. “Your father hung up on Titus and told him to leave you alone. But Titus has got some of the council to back him up to get a bill signed that states he can choose who you or Gray marry.”
“That’s absurd.” Harriet hissed. But the panic set in. “What is wrong with Uncle Titus?”
“Your father thinks he wants to retire,” Julie told her. “But he and the council have decided that he can’t hand over the reins to either of you until you or Gray are married or at least engaged with a set wedding date.”
“Whoa!” Harriet breathed. “I’m not in the running for that job. That’s all Gray’s area of expertise, not mine. I’m sorry, but I don’t want the position. I never have, and I never will.”
Panic started to claw at her throat. While Harriet loved her uncle, she knew he could be ruthlessly stubborn when he had his mind set on something. While Harriet lived her life as she pleased, she also knew that if her uncle really wanted to, he could insist Harriet take up her family duties. If she refused, he could strip her of her title, and she’d be banished from her ancestral home for good or risk imprisonment if she tried to go back.
While Harriet didn’t care much about titles, she did love her ancestral home. But Harriet would be darned if she’d let her uncle bully her into doing something she didn’t want to, especially marrying someone she didn’t want to. The thing about her uncle was that if he couldn’t get his way, he’d try to go through her parents or brother. Her stomach churned with anxiety at the thought of even seeing Leon again. There was noway on earth she would marry him. She didn’t care who her uncle was. Harriet knew there was one law he couldn’t break.
Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled from her mother, “I’m sorry, Mom, but you’re just going to have to tell Uncle Titus not to waste his time bringing Leon here,” Harriet stated. “Not only is it in bad taste to try and set up an engagement on the back of a wedding, but I’m already engaged. My fiancé and I were going to fly to New York after Alex’s wedding party to tell you.”
“You’re what?” Julie spluttered. “Since when and who is this man?”
Shoot, shoot, shoot!Harriet’s mind spun.What am I doing?“Finn, his name is Finn,” she blurted in a panic.
CHAPTER 2
“Dad, please can Maggie and I go with Connor and Jules to Long Island?” Tucker Shaw smiled sweetly at his father.
Finn sighed as he looked at his seventeen-year-old son. “I’m waiting for your Aunt Caroline to answer my message. Once she’s confirmed that Brad’s parents are okay with Connor’s invitation, then we’ll talk.”
“Fine,” Tucker sighed. “If you do let us go, I promise to look after Maggie. She and the Dane housekeeper’s granddaughter are good friends. When we were there with them over New Year’s, Maggie and Diana had a great time.”
“I know,” Finn said, grinning at Tucker’s attempts to butter him up so they could go on holiday with their cousins.
“It will be good for you, too, to have some alone time.”
“Tuck, I said you could go as soon as your Aunt Caroline confirms it’s okay,” Finn assured him. “But you know the rules,and I know you’re seventeen now. But you’re still not adult enough to do certain things like drinking alcohol.”
“I know, Dad!” Tucker spun around on the kitchen chair, which was shaped like a bar stool. “I’m not interested in alcohol.” He grinned. “At least not yet. I’ll leave that for college.”
“I don’t need to hear that.” Finn laughed as he prepared lunch for his kids.
“Hey, Dad,” Maggie, his eleven-year-old daughter, wandered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Is there juice?”
“I juiced some fresh apples that I picked off the tree,” Tucker told her. “It’s in the juice bottle with the oranges on it.”
Maggie looked at her older brother and rolled her eyes. “Why do you always do that?” She pulled the apple juice out and kicked the door closed. “Dad bought the bottles with fruit on for a reason.”
“I just like to mix things up and make it interesting,” Tucker told her.
“I’m with your sister on this one.” Finn expertly sliced a cucumber and added it to the fresh green salad he was tossing together. “It’s annoying when you grab the orange juice bottle and get apple or cranberry.”
“Pay attention.” Tucker threw Finn’s words back at him. “Remember you used to mix up the cookie jars and put the oatmeal in the choc-chip to teach us to pay attention.”
“That wasn’t actually why I did that,” Finn admitted. “Although it did teach you to pay attention.”
“Why did you do it?” Maggie asked, sliding onto a chair beside her brother and pouring some juice into a glass.
“I swapped the cookies in the jars in the hopes that your brother would eat the oatmeal cookies instead of the chocolate chip ones,” Finn admitted. “But your brother took it as me trying to teach him to pay attention because he’d walk around in a world of his own.” He laughed as another memory struck him.“The one time I moved Tucker’s favorite chair, he walked into the living room with his nose stuck in a book and went to sit down.”
Maggie burst out laughing. “And he hit the floor!” she guessed.
“I remember that,” Tucker said. “You’d put a bean bag there instead. Although it wasn’t a very good bean bag either, I still hit the floor.”
“Because of how hard you used to plonk yourself into a chair,” Finn pointed out.
